Active clinical trials for "Depression"

The study is designed to observe the impact of improved measures of the fidelity on the community delivery of Interpersonal Psychotherapy. Pairs of therapist-patient dyads will be observed, first to develop and test brief measures of fidelity, and then to correlate those measures with symptomatic outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to compare depressive characteristics in migraine patients to those observed in patients with epilepsy in a previous study, and determine whether those symptoms are unique to patients with epilepsy.

Aim of this study is to investigate neuronal differences (EEG/evoked potentials; functional MRI) between patients with major depression and healthy controls concerning brain activity after acute pain as well as changes of pain related brain activity during treatment with escitalopram.

This study is designed to determine the incidence and severity of respiratory depression in elective cesarean section patients who have received a spinal or epidural narcotic called duramorph for management of postoperative pain. A monitoring device called a capnograph as well as a device called a pulse oximeter is placed on the patient once in the recovery room after delivery. The capnograph monitors the carbon dioxide level that the patient breathes out as well as their respiratory rate. The pulse oximeter is a device that is taped on the patient's finger and measures their oxygen saturation level. The monitoring is maintained for 18-24 hours after surgery.

Several lines of evidence support the existence of an underlying abnormality in brain energy metabolism may play a key role in the biology of mood disorders. The current study utilizes two distinct but complementary imaging techniques, fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), to better understand the nature of these metabolic abnormalities in major depressive disorder (MDD). The investigators hypothesize that individuals with depression will have increased metabolic activity as measured by PET in certain brain regions involved in mood regulation, but that this metabolic activity will be inefficient based on MRS findings. For this study, the investigators will study 10 medication-free, currently depressed participants with recurrent MDD, 10 depressed participants with recurrent MDD currently taking antidepressant medication, and up to 20 healthy control participants matched to depressed participants for age and gender. Depressed and healthy participants will each undergo one PET scan and one MRS scanning session.

The investigators are doing this study to find out if they can use electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings, which measure brain waves, to predict response to antidepressant treatments, as well as to distinguish patients who have depression from those who do not. In particular the investigators want to test the usefulness of a new type of analysis of EEG recordings called brain network activation or BNA. BNA allows to identify patterns of activation in brain networks and to track their changes over time.

Most patients who present with problem drinking also present with mood problems. Problem drinking and mood problems co-occurring together in individuals lead them to have more severe symptoms, greater disability and poorer quality of life than individuals with only problem drinking, and they pose a greater economic burden to society due to their higher use of health services. This study aims to assess the efficacy of a new, innovative and cost effective treatment strategy aimed at reducing the burden that these co-occurring conditions impose on the suffers and their families as well as the community and health systems. In a recent pilot study of supportive text messages for patients with problem drinking and co-occurring depression, the investigators established that patients who received twice daily supportive text messages for three months had significantly less depressive symptoms than those who did not receive such messages. There was also a trend to finding that patients who received the supportive text messages were more likely to have higher alcohol free days than those who did not receive any supportive text messages. This study seeks to extend the knowledge gained from the pilot study. A larger group of patients with alcohol use disorder and a depressive disorder will be randomly assigned to two groups. One group will receive supportive text messages for six months duration whilst the other group will receive no supportive text messages. The patients will be followed up at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months to determine which of the two groups have less alcohol and mood problems. It is anticipated that patients receiving supportive text messages will report significantly greater alcohol free days as well as significantly less relapses, hospitalizations and mood symptoms than those not receiving such messages.

We propose here to explore systematically the association between drug-metabolizing enzymes activity assessed by a phenotypical approach and antidepressant plasma concentration, efficacy and tolerance in the clinical setting. During one year, patients receiving antidepressant will be included in tis prospective clinical, naturalistic and descriptive pilot study.

The study will examine whether there is a difference in the frequencies of respiratory depression among obese women receiving spinal anesthesia combined with opioids compared to women with normal BMI. If such a risk exists further investigation will be required to establish the proper criteria for the administration of morphine with spinal anesthesia to obese women.

The specificity of postnatal depression (PND) was acted as full entity within the depressions, by B. Pitt in 1968, through the description of a specific nosography which describes "an atypical depression of the post-partum ". Actually, the epidemiological studies agree on prevalence from 10 to 15 % of PND. With two peaks of frequency, the first one around the 6th and 12th week comment native and the second during the second half-year. This rate of PND represents in France 75000 to 100000 women a year. The professionals of the perinatal period are interested in this disorder because of the consequences for the woman herself, and of the impact on the premature interactions mother-baby. These interactions and the direct effects of the PND on the mother will have for influence an important slowing down on the development of the baby. Moreover, the study of Lemaitre and Candilis in 1999, brings the figure of 15 % of the PND which will have an impact on the development of the baby. The sensation of the depression testifies of a process of change and of psychic conflict favored by the psychic transparency of the pregnancy. Although the first treaty on this specific nosography dates more than 150 years of numerous questions stay suspends it. These questions and the reflections which surround them found on their path tools ensuing from the theory of the attachment, formalized by John Bowlby. For more than three decades, these profiles of attachment, specified by Mary Ainsworth: secure, anxious-ambivalent, anxious-avoided and disorganized later, disrupted, is studied, estimated and their evolution during a life is observed. Thanks to these models well known for the same person at a time t, it is now their effects in the interpersonal relations which are studied. Between the people but also on the person himself, its image of her, and its autobiographical memory. The autobiographical memory represents a central component of the human memory. At a very general level, it's possible to define it as the capacity of a person to remember its past experiences. The review of the literature on the functioning of the episodic autobiographical memory during the depression highlights three main results: the too bi generalization of the memories, the congruence in the humor and the frequency of the intrusive memories characterized by an involuntary reminder, fast and effortlessly (Lemogne and al., 2006; Lemogne and al., 2012). The authors specify that there are links between strategies of avoidance of the intrusive memories and the phenomenon of generalization. These links ask to be explored within a model integrating, self and episodic autobiographical memory in the field of the depression. The use of the memories defining the one could allow to study more specifically this kind of memories. The memories defining the one were introduced to Ape and Moffitt (1991) to characterize a specific category of autobiographical memories. The memories defining the one are important personal memories which help a person to understand whom this person is as individual. In a way, they build the life story and support the personal identity. Connected to other similar memories, the self-defining memories contain numerous sensory details and are often associated to a strong emotional charge. They are also connected to long-term purposes, to concerns or to unsolved conflicts. Recent studies used the self-defining memories (French version adapted by Mr van der Linden's team, Switzerland) as tool to understand better the psychological disorders from which certain people suffer. The studies show that the self-defining memories undergo modifications the characteristics of which are in connection with every pathology (works of the team of J.M. Danion). In 1994, Moffit and al. studied a group of students with evaluation of the depressive symptomatology. They established that the presenting subjects of high scores of depression develop more generalized memories than the other participants when is asked to them a self-defining memorie positive. For the memories with negative valence, no difference is found among the tested students. There are no data in the literature on the self-defining memories and the postnatal depression. Besides, there is only a single search, not published which explores the links between the attachment and the memories defining the one (Tagini, Conway and Meins, looks for not published, quoted by Conway, to Ape and Tagini, on 2004). The authors present the results according to the styles of attachment. So, autobiographical memories would vary according to the cognitive and emotional dimensions, in connection with differences in the style of attachment. In every style of attachment would correspond certain specificities in the contents and in the form of the self-defining memories.